What is a dom-com if not an erotic comedy drama?
Harry Lighton, the first-time writer and director of Pillion has no beef with how his movie is described by Wikipedia, but dom-com is just a “much funner way” to encapsulate his film, a transgressive but tender coming-of-age BDSM tale.
Adapted from the book Box Hill by Adam Mars-Jones, Pillion is the story of Colin (Harry Melling, who has worked with the likes of Coen brothers and Gina Prince-Bythewood since he played Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter movies), an introverted and sweet man in his 30s who still lives at home with his supportive parents, has a job as a parking ticket officer and sings in an acapella group with his dad.
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One night at the pub, he catches the eye of Ray, a tall, handsome and confident older man that could only be described as a Nordic god because he’s been played by the very Nordic god-like Alexander Skarsgard. Ray leaves a note for Colin to meet him later on Christmas Day.
Ray is a dom, and he’s looking for a new sub, and Colin has a knack for devotion, cooking for him and sleeping on the floor by the bed. Ray introduces Colin to a new world of sexual exploration and a subculture of gay biker gangs who hold orgies and picnic lunches, sometimes at the same time.
As much as BDSM might be whispered about in so-called polite company, it’s been part of our pop cultural language for some time. Paul Giamatti’s character in Billions indulges in play, and we’ve had films ranging from beloved arthouse flicks such as the 2002 film Secretary to box office titillators such as the Fifty Shades trilogy.
Then there was last year awards season flirt Babygirl, starring Nicole Kidman, and, right now, Wuthering Heights has the hint of some BDSM, albeit from two peripheral characters.
Is Pillion, which refers to the passenger seat on a motorcycle, ready to become the go-to mainstream film of dom-sub romance?
“I think it has one foot in the mainstream and one out of the mainstream,” Lighton told The Nightly. “When I say it’s not mainstream, I mean it’s not going to be like Wicked.”
But it’s also not fringe cinema, and that’s in part thanks to Skarsgard’s game promotional tour, where he often dresses up in on-theme leather outfits for the red carpet.
Lighton is quick to credit his predecessors for laying the groundwork for something like Pillion, a queer BDSM movie, to be embraced. The film has a rare 100 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, from more than 100 professional reviews, and is nominated for three BAFTAs.
Instinctively, he thought Pillion couldn’t have been made 20 years ago, but “we had a Q&A with Gregg Araki and I was thinking about Mysterious Skin and that touches on all sorts of subject matter which is both queer and difficult, but then has comedy in it. In some ways, I think it has some of the same DNA as Pillion.
Alexander Skarsgard and Harry Melling in Pillion. Credit: Rialto Distribution
“I wouldn’t call Pillion mainstream, but it wouldn’t have had the same potential to break out of the queer underground that it does today because we had lots of queer dramas pave the way for a story which is more unconventional.
“I feel less pressure as a filmmaker to present queer characters who are maybe ambassadors for gay people in the way that 20 years ago, when people were starved of queer characters on screen.”
One of the reasons Pillion works so well is thanks to Harry Melling’s performance as Colin as someone who’s awakening to just his kinks and sexual desires, but also discovering and negotiating the relationship dynamics he wants.
Negotiating might be an interesting word to describe someone in a submissive role, but Pillion is a coming-of-age story, albeit an arrested development one, and Colin is the heart that powers the engine.
Pillion Credit: Rialto Distribution
“It’s about someone who starts off very inexperienced and naïve to the experience of love,” Melling explained. “By the end of the movie, he arrives somewhere where he sort of knows his parameters.
“One of the reasons maybe people relate to it is because it is a story about someone falling in love for the first time.”
The sex scenes, which includes a wrestling-cum-sex session set-up that is notable for not just its eye-popping acrobatics, but for its undeniable heat, were choreographed with intimacy coordinator Robbie Taylor Hunt.
Working out the camera angles for maximum impact was creatively fulfilling for Lighton, but all those scenes had to serve the story. Sometimes they were clumsy and awkward, and sometimes they were not, depending on where the characters were in that moment.
“The sex stuff was definitely telling a story all the time,” Melling said. “It wasn’t just some nice little interlude where things got very beautiful and they made love.
“It was telling the story of Colin growing into himself, and the story of Ray’s needs and desires. Robbie and Harry (Lighton) were wonderful in making sure that those story narrative moments were protected and they were landing.”
Harry Melling in Pillion. Credit: Rialto Distribution
Lighton had real-life members of the gay biker subculture in the film as part of those group scenes. Both him and his actors spent time with them to ensure that Pillion authentically captured their humanity.
“There was a huge amount of variety even within a very niche world,” Lighton said. “There’s manifold difference of bikers, and all different types of doms and subs within that world.”
But it was their ordinariness that struck Melling, which is something that is definitely present in the film. Amid the leather, the chains and the nudity are sandwiches and care.
“I remember my first trip riding pillion on the passenger seat up to Cambridge Pride,” Melling recalled. “We stopped off at this tiny tea hut in the middle of nowhere and they all park their bikes and they all sat on a bench and they just had a really dull conversation about something.
“It was such a lovely takeaway because I kept thinking about what Harry (Lighton) wrote and those amazing sort-of-mundane, normal scenes of Christmas and Sunday lunch and how that rubs up against an orgy scene in the woods.”
Pillion is in cinemas on February 19
